Wednesday 24 May 2006
High street games shops have been told by Sony that there will be no PS3 pre-owned sections in their stores as it will be illegal for customers to sell any next-gen PlayStation games that they've bought, retail sources have revealed to GamesRadar.

It seems that Sony is planning to adopt a licensing system that will mean gamers won't own the PS3 titles that they've paid money for. Instead, they will only be purchasing the licence to play the game and that the software itself will still be Sony property - meaning that the disc won't be the customer's to sell.

We assume that the thinking behind this move will ultimately be to stop PS3 games being resold several times - which currently snatches potential sales away from Sony - and to counter the impression in consumers' minds that games are only really worth their pre-owned price and are not worth buying new.

When we contacted Sony, it issued us with the following statement: "We have made all of the official announcements at E3 and cannot make any further comments at this time. We will be announcing more news running up to PlayStation 3's launch."

I never buy used games so it wont effect me and I know sony wants to recoup thier losses but that may have just killed it for them this generation. Sony will need a super duper ad campaign and mind numbingly incredible games to win back favor of gamers hell maybe even product placement in the new spider-man movie cause to some this move will come off as some fucked up repugnant shit.

I'm almost not suprised. Anyone else remember the patent that showed up a while back that suggested Sony had at least developed a system to lock games to the console it is used on first? That could be part of it. If the rumor is true, it will be a dumb move on Sony's part and will continue to be a factor in making gamers leary of purchasing the system.

Oh, great. So, if a title doesn't make it out in the UK, odds are I won't be allowed to buy it legally, since the license probably will prohibit use outside the US as well.

"We'll do away with region coding, so that we can just fix the license to stop them doing it anyway!"

I get the impression I might finally be forced to outgrow my gaming days at this rate. Many titles I love are on Playstation, but if they don't go multiformat I think I might well just quit while I'm ahead. I love my games, but I don't love them that much.

I'm almost not suprised. Anyone else remember the patent that showed up a while back that suggested Sony had at least developed a system to lock games to the console it is used on first? That could be part of it. If the rumor is true, it will be a dumb move on Sony's part and will continue to be a factor in making gamers leary of purchasing the system.

Click to expand...

Of course Sony promised they wouldn't use that patent (why register a patent you won't use?) and plenty of people here said that nothing like this could possibly happen.